This post starts eerily last the last one…in the day or two after that last session, I spent an hour or two working on finishing the trimming of the rear side baffles. Never wrote anything up about it, since I’d probably be doing more the next day…or the next…or…well, you get the idea. Also, I apparently didn’t take a single picture while working on those baffles. Huh.
Anyway, here we are today, where I picked up on the task of trimming the rear baffles, which runs along the aft side of the engine. I’d previously drawn a first hack a trim line, way back when I put paper clips on the entire assembly, but I decided to fine-tune that a bit before making my first cuts. Since I had the rear side baffles done, I could use those to mark where the intersecting pieces should be cut at the corners. Basically I marked those junction points and sort of made a freehand hack at tweaking the trim lines. I was, of course, pretty conservative while doing this – as ever, it’s a lot harder to put material back than to take it off.
That first trim was, indeed, very conservative – I still wasn’t able to get the upper cowl all the way seated. Things were much batter after the second trim – I was able to get the cowl in place and the pins installed. A peek through the oil door shows all those paper clips:
After marking yet another trim line, then doing all the trimming/filing/deburring/etc, I reinstalled everything for one more test fit. Now we can see how the baffles have the specified 3/8” clearance to the cowl – this clearance will later be taken up by the rubber seal material:
So that takes care of most of the baffle trimming. Wait, that’s not all? Afraid not. There will be another vertical baffle section just behind the prop hub, which will also need to go through this whole paper clip exercise too. And once that’s done, I’ll probably paper clip the entire perimeter and do one final clearance check all around, just for good measure.
I don’t think I’m going to do that right now, though. I think it’s time to finally remove that forward upper skin…along with what I’m sure will be some really stubborn duct tape adhesive residue. That stuff’s been on there for a couple summers now, and there’s no way it’s going to come off without some liberal application of acetone. But once that’s off, I can resume work on electrical systems, which I’m kind of looking forward to as a change from fiberglass and baffle fiddling.